System and method of providing context information for client application data stored on the web

ABSTRACT

An improved system and method for supporting web system services is provided for storing data and context of client applications on the web. A client application may include a web system services interface for invoking web system services to support web applications to operate over the web using different devices that may store data and context of web applications as a web application document onto a web server. A web application document may be represented by components that may include view information, content, and context information. The application may also include a web system services user interface for providing a graphical user interface for a user to invoke web system services that may include a new document system service, a store document system service, and a restore document system service. A schema for context scope may be implemented for collecting context information relevant to the web application document.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present invention is related to the following United States patentapplication, filed concurrently herewith and incorporated herein in itsentirety:

“System and Method for Providing Web System Services for Storing Dataand Context of Client Applications on the Web,” Attorney Docket No.1340;

“System and Method of Storing Data and Context of Client Applications onthe Web,” Attorney Docket No. 1450;

“System and Method of Restoring Data and Context of Client ApplicationsStored on the Web,” Attorney Docket No. 1460;

“System and Method of Providing a User Interface for Client Applicationsto Store Data and Context Information on the Web,” Attorney Docket No.1470; and

“System and Method of Serving Advertisements for Web Applications,”Attorney Docket No. 1480.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates generally to computer systems, and moreparticularly to an improved system and method for providing web systemservices for storing data and context of client applications on the web.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Web users are increasingly conducting their personal and professionallives online by using a variety of different applications and devices toprovide functionality for communications, scheduling activities,searching and retrieving information, creating and sharing informationand content, and many other applications. A variety of applications andinformation formats like wikis, blogs, video and audio editors, andpersonal social networking pages provide increasing capability of usersto create and share information. Users may create any number ofdocuments that may be shared by reference to a network location or maybe sent as an encapsulated document to another user via email. Forexample, users might move from creating daily blog posts or myspaceprofiles to creating sales presentations, business reports, multimediaentertainment works, non-fiction works, or “electronic books” containingmultiple media items of varying formats.

Unfortunately, there fails to be any consistent set of servicessupporting an arbitrary set of applications that may be used on the weband that may store content on the web accessible by any of theapplications. An online user may be able to receive news headlines fromRSS feeds but may not be able to store the headline news stories on theweb and later access the text messages using a text-to-speechapplication to listen to the news headlines from a mobile device. Or anonline user may be able to send and receive email attachments usingclient-server based email systems connected over the web, but may not beable to access the content of the attachments using a text editorexecuting on a handheld device. Similarly, an online user may receive avideo conferencing broadcast over the web, but may not be able to storethe video conference on the web and later access the video conferencefrom storage on the web using a streaming media application on an IPvideo phone.

Although there may be a variety of applications commercially availablefor creating and storing a web page on a client computer or creating andstoring a web page on a web page server, there fails to be a data andstorage model for a client to create a content file on a client deviceand to store the content file on the web where it may be accessible by avariety of web-based applications executing on different devices.HTML-style web pages, for instance, fail to support inclusion of suchvaried forms of context that may be accessible by a variety of web-basedapplications. What is needed is a system and method that may implement adata and storage model that may accommodate an otherwise varied set ofdocument types, applications, and device configurations so that anonline user may seamlessly store and retrieve content ubiquitously usingany device connected to the web.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Briefly, the present invention may provide a system and method forproviding web system services. In various embodiments, a client havingan application may be operably coupled by a network to one or moreservers such as an identity authentication server, a web applicationserver, and/or a web server. An application, such as a web browser, mayexecute on the client computer and may include functionality forproviding an interface, such as a web system services interface, forinvoking web system services to support web applications to operate overthe web using different devices that may store data and context of webapplications as a web application document onto a web server. A webapplication document may be represented by components that may includeview information, content, and context information. The application mayalso include a web system services UI for providing a graphical userinterface for a user to invoke web system services, a contextinformation monitor for monitoring and collecting context information tobe incorporated into a web application document, a content parser forparsing content from an application for inclusion in a web applicationdocument, and a content loader for loading content from a webapplication document saved on the web into the application operating onthe client.

The identity authentication server may provide functionality as a webservice for authenticating the identity of a user associated with a webapplication server. The identity authentication server may be operablycoupled to identity information storage which may store userinformation, including for example, a user identification, a password,an email address, and so forth. The web application server may includeweb system services for supporting web applications to store data andcontext as a web application document on operably coupled storage. Forinstance, the web system services may include new document systemservice, a store document system service, and a restore document systemservice. The new document system service may provide functionality forcreating a web application document including content and context foruse by many different web applications, including the web applicationused to input the content, operating on different devices. The storedocument system service may provide functionality for storing a webapplication document on a web server accessible by a user connected tothe web server by any number of different devices. The restore documentsystem service may provide functionality for restoring the content andcontext of a web application document for a web application operating ondifferent devices.

The present invention may also provide a graphical user interface forinvoking a web system service for storing client application data andcontext as a web application document on a web server. An implementationof a user interface menu, web system services interface code andassociated programmatic functionality may be dynamically loaded when aclient may request authentication of a user. In various embodiments,part or all of the executable code may be loaded from client storage, orpart or all of the executable code may be loaded in various otherembodiments from a web application server via the network. A clientapplication may request a web system service to be performed on a webapplication document using the implementation of the user interfacemenu, web system services interface code and associated programmaticfunctionality. For example, an application on a client device, such as aweb browser, may display a drop-down menu of web system serviceoperations that may be performed on web application documents. Such websystem service operations may include New, Open, Close, Save, Save As,Restore, and so forth. A web browser may display a drop-down menu of websystem service operations that may be performed on web applicationdocuments. Such web system service operations may include New, Open,Close, Save, Save As, Restore, and so forth.

A user may request web system services to be performed to create andthen to store a web application document on a web application server. Todo so, a user may create a new web application document in the clientapplication by selecting New in the web application menu to invoke websystem services interface code that may create a new web applicationdocument. The user may then add content to the document, such as animage or text, and then save the web application document by selectingSave in the web application menu to save the web application document onthe web. In an implementation, the web application document may betransmitted though a network to a web application server, which maywrite the web application document into a named “folder” or section of ahard drive. If a user may wish to review a web application document orto create a new one, a conventional web server may be accessed in anembodiment by a client.

Or an application, such as a web browser, may be executing on a clientthat may display the contents of a web page retrieved from a web server.By selecting Save in the drop-down menu, the user may request that thecontent in the web page be stored in a web application document on theweb. A Save screen may also display selectable options for a user tospecify parameters of the information to be saved in a web applicationdocument. For instance, parameters may be specified to indicate whetherthe view information should be stored into the web application document,whether the content of a client application file should be stored intothe web application document, and whether the context informationrelated to a client application file should be stored into the webapplication document. A context scope declaration schema may be providedfor collecting context information and the context scope declaration maybe represented as a logical schema of elements including a field ofview, a time, relevance criteria, entries to return, and who may beassociated with the relevant information. Furthermore, the amount ofcontext information for elements of the context information schema maybe selectable for customizing the context information preserved in theweb application document.

A user may also restore a web application document in an applicationoperating on a client by selecting Restore in the web application menuto invoke a web system service interface for restoring the webapplication document. The web system service may then be performed onthe client by requesting the content of a web application document to beloaded from the web into the application using the context stored in theweb application document. After the content of the web applicationdocument may be loaded in the application, the content may be modifiedby the application.

Advantageously, a user may select the amount of context information tostore about the web application document as well as specify keywords tobe associated with the web application document. Importantly, thepresent invention implements a data and storage model that mayaccommodate an otherwise varied set of document types and configurationsby providing consistent services across an arbitrary set ofapplications. Other advantages will become apparent from the followingdetailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings, inwhich:

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram generally representing a computer system intowhich the present invention may be incorporated;

FIG. 2 is a block diagram generally representing an exemplaryarchitecture of system components for supporting web applications tooperate over the web using different devices that may store data andcontext of web applications as a web application document onto webservers, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken inone embodiment for requesting a web system service to be performed on aweb application document, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 is an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logicalrelationship of user properties for storing web application documents onthe web, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken inone embodiment for creating a web application document, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken inone embodiment for restoring a web application document, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 7 is an exemplary illustration generally representing a graphicaluser interface for invoking web system services for supporting webapplications to store data and context as a web application document ona web server, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 8 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertaken inone embodiment for creating a web application document, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 9 is an exemplary illustration generally representing elements of acontent file for a client application that may be input into a webapplication document, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 10 is a block diagram generally representing an exemplaryarchitecture of components in an embodiment for a web applicationdocument, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin one embodiment to transfer content and context information of aclient application file into a web application document, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 12 is an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logicalrelationship of context information for storing web applicationdocuments on the web, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 13 is an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logical schemaof elements for a context scope declaration applicable to a webapplication document, in accordance with an aspect of the presentinvention;

FIG. 14 is an exemplary illustration generally representing a graphicaluser interface for invoking a web system service for storing clientapplication data and context as a web application document on a webserver, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 15 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin one embodiment for determining information to transfer from a clientapplication file into a web application document, in accordance with anaspect of the present invention;

FIG. 16 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin an embodiment for determining the amount of context information totransfer from a client application file into a web application document;

FIG. 17 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin one embodiment for determining information to transfer from a webapplication document to a client application for display, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 18 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin one embodiment to transfer content and context information from a webapplication document to a client application for display, in accordancewith an aspect of the present invention;

FIG. 19 is a block diagram generally representing an exemplaryarchitecture of system components for using context information foronline advertising applications, in accordance with an aspect of thepresent invention; and

FIG. 20 is a flowchart for generally representing the steps undertakenin one embodiment for using context information for online advertisingapplications, in accordance with an aspect of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Exemplary Operating Environment

FIG. 1 illustrates suitable components in an exemplary embodiment of ageneral purpose computing system. The exemplary embodiment is only oneexample of suitable components and is not intended to suggest anylimitation as to the scope of use or functionality of the invention.Neither should the configuration of components be interpreted as havingany dependency or requirement relating to any one or combination ofcomponents illustrated in the exemplary embodiment of a computer system.The invention may be operational with numerous other general purpose orspecial purpose computing system environments or configurations.

The invention may be described in the general context ofcomputer-executable instructions, such as program modules, beingexecuted by a computer. Generally, program modules include routines,programs, objects, components, data structures, and so forth, whichperform particular tasks or implement particular abstract data types.The invention may also be practiced in distributed computingenvironments where tasks are performed by remote processing devices thatare linked through a communications network. In a distributed computingenvironment, program modules may be located in local and/or remotecomputer storage media including memory storage devices.

With reference to FIG. 1, an exemplary system for implementing theinvention may include a general purpose computer system 100. Componentsof the computer system 100 may include, but are not limited to, a CPU orcentral processing unit 102, a system memory 104, and a system bus 120that couples various system components including the system memory 104to the processing unit 102. The system bus 120 may be any of severaltypes of bus structures including a memory bus or memory controller, aperipheral bus, and a local bus using any of a variety of busarchitectures. By way of example, and not limitation, such architecturesinclude Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, Micro ChannelArchitecture (MCA) bus, Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, Video ElectronicsStandards Association (VESA) local bus, and Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (PCI) bus also known as Mezzanine bus.

The computer system 100 may include a variety of computer-readablemedia. Computer-readable media can be any available media that can beaccessed by the computer system 100 and includes both volatile andnonvolatile media. For example, computer-readable media may includevolatile and nonvolatile computer storage media implemented in anymethod or technology for storage of information such ascomputer-readable instructions, data structures, program modules orother data. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM,ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, CD-ROM, digitalversatile disks (DVD) or other optical disk storage, magnetic cassettes,magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices,or any other medium which can be used to store the desired informationand which can accessed by the computer system 100. Communication mediamay include computer-readable instructions, data structures, programmodules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier waveor other transport mechanism and includes any information deliverymedia. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one ormore of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encodeinformation in the signal. For instance, communication media includeswired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, andwireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media.

The system memory 104 includes computer storage media in the form ofvolatile and/or nonvolatile memory such as read only memory (ROM) 106and random access memory (RAM) 110. A basic input/output system 108(BIOS), containing the basic routines that help to transfer informationbetween elements within computer system 100, such as during start-up, istypically stored in ROM 106. Additionally, RAM 110 may contain operatingsystem 112, application programs 114, other executable code 116 andprogram data 118. RAM 110 typically contains data and/or program modulesthat are immediately accessible to and/or presently being operated on byCPU 102.

The computer system 100 may also include other removable/non-removable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media. By way of example only,FIG. 1 illustrates a hard disk drive 122 that reads from or writes tonon-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media, and storage device 134 thatmay be an optical disk drive or a magnetic disk drive that reads from orwrites to a removable, a nonvolatile storage medium 144 such as anoptical disk or magnetic disk. Other removable/non-removable,volatile/nonvolatile computer storage media that can be used in theexemplary computer system 100 include, but are not limited to, magnetictape cassettes, flash memory cards, digital versatile disks, digitalvideo tape, solid state RAM, solid state ROM, and the like. The harddisk drive 122 and the storage device 134 may be typically connected tothe system bus 120 through an interface such as storage interface 124.

The drives and their associated computer storage media, discussed aboveand illustrated in FIG. 1, provide storage of computer-readableinstructions, executable code, data structures, program modules andother data for the computer system 100. In FIG. 1, for example, harddisk drive 122 is illustrated as storing operating system 112,application programs 114, other executable code 116 and program data118. A user may enter commands and information into the computer system100 through an input device 140 such as a keyboard and pointing device,commonly referred to as mouse, trackball or touch pad tablet, electronicdigitizer, or a microphone. Other input devices may include a joystick,game pad, satellite dish, scanner, and so forth. These and other inputdevices are often connected to CPU 102 through an input interface 130that is coupled to the system bus, but may be connected by otherinterface and bus structures, such as a parallel port, game port or auniversal serial bus (USB). A display 138 or other type of video devicemay also be connected to the system bus 120 via an interface, such as avideo interface 128. In addition, an output device 142, such as speakersor a printer, may be connected to the system bus 120 through an outputinterface 132 or the like computers.

The computer system 100 may operate in a networked environment using anetwork 136 to one or more remote computers, such as a remote computer146. The remote computer 146 may be a personal computer, a server, arouter, a network PC, a peer device or other common network node, andtypically includes many or all of the elements described above relativeto the computer system 100. The network 136 depicted in FIG. 1 mayinclude a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or othertype of network. Such networking environments are commonplace inoffices, enterprise-wide computer networks, intranets and the Internet.In a networked environment, executable code and application programs maybe stored in the remote computer. By way of example, and not limitation,FIG. 1 illustrates remote executable code 148 as residing on remotecomputer 146. It will be appreciated that the network connections shownare exemplary and other means of establishing a communications linkbetween the computers may be used.

Web System Services for Storing Data and Context of Client Applicationson the Web

The present invention is generally directed towards a system and methodfor providing web system services for supporting web applications tooperate over the web using different devices that may store data andcontext of web applications as a web application document onto webservers. As used herein, a web system service may mean to perform anoperation on a web application document that may include data andcontext stored on the web for creating, storing or restoring a webapplication document. In addition to storing content for users on theweb, enhanced context and related information may be saved along withthe content. Accordingly, a user may select the amount of contextinformation to store about the web application document as well asspecify keywords to be associated with the web application document. Ingeneral, context may mean information related to the web applicationdocument that may be either inferred or declared. Advantageously, thescope of context may be varied by a user so that either more or lesscontextual information of a given type may be saved as part of the webapplication document.

As will be seen, the present invention may implement a data and storagemodel that may accommodate an otherwise varied set of document types andconfigurations by providing consistent services across an arbitrary setof applications. Moreover, information stored using the web systemsservices may be made generally available for retrieval by webapplications other than those that stored the information. As will beunderstood, the various block diagrams, flow charts and scenariosdescribed herein are only examples, and there are many other scenariosto which the present invention will apply.

Turning to FIG. 2 of the drawings, there is shown a block diagramgenerally representing an exemplary architecture of system componentsfor supporting web applications to operate over the web using differentdevices that may store data and context of web applications as a webapplication document onto web servers. Those skilled in the art willappreciate that the functionality implemented within the blocksillustrated in the diagram may be implemented as separate components orthe functionality of several or all of the blocks may be implementedwithin a single component. For example, the functionality for theidentity authentication server 216 may be included in the webapplication server 224. Or the functionality of the content loader 214may be may be implemented as a separate component from the application204. Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that thefunctionality implemented within the blocks illustrated in the diagrammay be executed on a single computer or distributed across a pluralityof computers for execution.

In various embodiments, a client computer 202 may be operably coupled bya network 222 to one or more servers such as identity authenticationserver 216, web application server 224, and/or web server 234. Theclient computer 202 may be a computer such as computer system 100 ofFIG. 1. The network 222 may be any type of network such as a local areanetwork (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network. Anapplication 204, such as a web browser, may execute on the clientcomputer 202 and may include functionality for providing an interface,such as web system services interface 206, for invoking web systemservices to support web applications to operate over the web usingdifferent devices that may store data and context of web applications asa web application document onto a web server. The application may alsoinclude a web system services UI 208 for providing a graphical userinterface for a user to invoke web system services, a contextinformation monitor 210 for monitoring and collecting contextinformation to be incorporated into a web application document, acontent parser 212 for parsing content from an application for inclusionin a web application document, and a content loader 214 for loadingcontent from a web application document 238 saved on the web into theapplication 204 operating on the client 202. The application 204, theweb system services UI 208, the context information monitor 210, thecontent parser 212, and the content loader 214 may be any type ofinterpreted or executable software code such as a kernel component, anapplication program, a script, a linked library, executable controls, anobject with methods, and so forth. The web system services interface 206may be any implementation of application programming interfaces (APIs)that may invoke web system services. For example, functionality for theweb system services interface may be implemented on a browser toolbarusing client-related code of the type commonly used in browser plug-ins,such as C++. Or it may be developed using a combination of technologiessuch as Javascript that may be executed locally, asynchronous access toa server through use of XMLHttpRequest, and/or a Javascript objectavailable for execution by the web browser. For example, there may be abookmarklet that may include a program such as a JavaScript applicationthat may directly connect from the web page to a database to adduser-generated metadata and page content.

The identity authentication server 216 may be a computer, such ascomputer system 100 of FIG. 1, and may provide functionality as a webservice for authenticating the identity of a user associated with a webapplication server 224. The identity authentication server 216 may beoperably coupled to identity information storage 218 which may storeuser information 220, including for example a user identification, apassword, an email address, and so forth. In an embodiment, thefunctionality of the identity authentication server 216 forauthenticating the identity of a user associated with a web applicationserver 224 may be implemented as a component of the web applicationserver 224 rather than implemented as a web service as illustrated inFIG. 2. Moreover, the identity authentication server 216 may be directlycoupled to the web application server 224 in a configuration instead ofoperating as a web service accessible via network 222.

The web application server 224 may include web system services 226 forsupporting web applications to store data and context as a webapplication document 238 on operably coupled storage 236. The web systemservices 226 may include new document system service 228, a storedocument system service 230, and a restore document system service 232.The new document system service 228 may provide functionality forcreating a web application document including content and context foruse by many different web applications, including the web applicationused to input the content, operating on different devices. The storedocument system service 230 may provide functionality for storing a webapplication document on a web server accessible by a user connected tothe web server by any number of different devices. The restore documentsystem service 232 may provide functionality for restoring the contentand context of a web application document for a web applicationoperating on different devices.

The web application server 224 may also be operably coupled to a webserver 234 that may store a web application document 238 on operablycoupled storage 236. A web application document 238 may include viewinformation 240, content 242, and context information 244. The webserver 234 may be accessed in an embodiment by a client 202 to retrievea web application document 238 or to create a new one. The web server234 may pass control to the web application server 224 or obtainrelevant information from the web application server 224 and transmitthe information through a network 222 to an application 204 operating ona client computer 202.

In general, the web system services may implement a data and storagemodel that may accommodate an otherwise varied set of document types andconfigurations by providing consistent services across an arbitrary setof applications from office productivity tools, including a wordprocessor, a spreadsheet application, and a presentation builder, tocreativity programs such as audio or video mixers, blogs or sitebuilders. To do so, web system services may allow the web to provideprimary storage for information rather than client hard drives. Inaddition to storing content for users on the web, enhanced context andrelated information may be saved along with the content. Furthermore,view information may be saved that provides information about theorganization structure determining presentation to user, such as HTML orCascading Style Sheet (CSS) declarations. Information stored using theweb systems services Save function may be made generally available forretrieval by web applications other than those that stored theinformation. Furthermore, privacy controls may additionally beimplemented for sharing such enriched documents with other users. Inaddition to saving content, context information and view information,those skilled in the art will appreciate that one or more instances ofcontent may be captured as well. For example, instances of contentpresented on a dynamic web page such as news may be progressively savedso that users may scan the instances of content to review top newsstories of interest.

FIG. 3 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for requesting a web system service to beperformed on a web application document. For example, an application ona client device may request web system services to be performed tocreate and to store a web application document on a web applicationserver. A request may be sent at step 302 to authenticate the identityof a user for performing a web system service on a web applicationdocument. In order to support storage on the web, user identities may bemapped to stored information, and may be authenticated in varyingdegrees to conform to the sensitivity of the information provided. Auser, operating a web browser on a network-connected client device suchas a computer or mobile phone, may be a registered user of the systemand may be authenticated by sending a user identification and passwordto a web application server. The web application server may communicatethe user identification and password to the identity authenticationserver for validation. User identities associated with the webapplication server may be authenticated with varying degrees of suretyas required by the service provider or user. A user identification andpassword might be sufficient in some instances while strongerauthentication may be employed in other embodiments as required by aservice operator. For example, multi-factor authentication may berequired for access to stored documents and application services such asa user identification, password, and a hardware token that periodicallygenerates ephemeral PINs. Such multi-factor authentication requirementswould most typically be associated with services made available by anenterprise, governmental, or other organization. As a practical matter,it is important to keep in mind that user authentication is alsorelevant with respect to business models. Under a pay-as-you-go businessmodel for software use, or for single pay-per-use business models,authentication may require a check to see if a user has paid thesubscription fee for access to the web system services.

Returning to FIG. 3, executable code may be received at step 304 forinvoking a web system service on a web application document. In anembodiment, an implementation of a user interface menu, web systemservices interface code and associated programmatic functionality may bedynamically loaded when a client may request authentication of a user.In various embodiments, part or all of the executable code may be loadedfrom client storage, or part or all of the executable code may be loadedin various other embodiments from a web application server via thenetwork. An implementation of web system service interface code mayinclude a NewWebAppDoc application programming interface (API) that maybe invoked by an application executing on a client to request a webapplication document to be created, a SaveWebAppDoc API that may beinvoked by an application executing on a client to request a webapplication document to be saved, and a RestoreWebAppDoc API that may beinvoked by an application executing on a client to request the contentof a web application document to be loaded from the web into theapplication using the context stored in the web application document.

A request may then be sent at step 306 to perform a web system serviceon a web application document. For example, a user may create a new webapplication document in the client browser by selecting New in the webapplication menu to invoke an API such as NewWebAppDoc. The user maythen add content to the document, such as an image or text, and thensave the web application document by selecting Save in the webapplication menu to invoke an API such as SaveWebAppDoc to save the webapplication document on the web. In an implementation, the webapplication document may be transmitted though a network to a webapplication server, which may write the web application document into anamed “Folder” or section of a hard drive. Such a folder may be named bya user, as a user may name a folder on a local hard drive of a client.If a user may wish to review a web application document or to create anew one, a conventional web server may be accessed in an embodiment by aclient. The web server may either pass control to a web applicationserver or obtain relevant information from the web application serverand transmit the information to the client through the network foraccessing or creating a web application document.

FIG. 4 presents an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logicalrelationship of user properties for storing web application documents onthe web. In particular, FIG. 4 illustrates the logical relationshipbetween a user 404 and a user's identity information 406, devices 408,and web application storage folders 410. Users may register accounts andcreate or receive credentials to be used during authentication. As partof the registration process, identity information 406 of a user 404 maybe created including a user identification 412 or login, a password 414,a physical address 416, an email address 418, an assigned security token420, biometrics 422, social network information 423 and so forth. Suchidentity information 406 may become a part of a user's information andmay be stored as a set of fields in a database record corresponding witha particular user.

Additionally, a user may access the world-wide web using a range ofdifferent devices 408, such as one or more computers 424, a mobile phone426, a media player 428, personal server 430, CE devices 432, or otherdevices. The network speed, display characteristics, internal memory andother characteristics may be substantially different for each of thesedevices. Content may be formatted differently for each of thesedifferent devices. For example, an image may be formatted for display ona cell phone screen with a different width and height than the sameimage formatted for display on a computer screen. Or a different pixelresolution may be used for devices connected to the web using slowernetwork speeds to reduce bandwidth requirements.

Also web application folders 410 may be associated with a user'sinformation. By invoking a web system service function, a user is ableto create “logical” folders 434. Such a logical folder 434 may representa directory in file storage and may be named by a user, stored in adatabase as part of the user's information, and associated withre-writable media such as that used in a conventional hard drive. A usermay then store copies of a web application document in a web systemservices folder. Such stored information may be, in one implementation,written to a set of sectors on a magnetic disk, such that each sectorcontains a pointer to the next sector in the chain. The location of theheader or start point of this chain of sectors containing userinformation may be stored in a table of such entries further associatedwith a user web application folder. Importantly, users may take fulladvantage of a scalable set of storage devices without requiringexposure to the details of where these devices are physically located.

FIG. 5 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for creating a web application document. Arequest may be received at step 502 for creating a web applicationdocument. In an embodiment, a user may select a web system service UIcontrol for creating a web application document and a web system serviceinterface may receive a request for creating a web application documentfrom the web system service UI control. For example, a user may create anew web application document in the client browser by selecting New inthe web application menu to invoke an API such as NewWebAppDoc. The websystem service may then be performed on the client and a web applicationdocument may be created at step 504. As part of creating the webapplication document, content from an application may be input into theweb application document.

A request may then be received at step 506 to store the web applicationdocument on a web server, and the web application document may be storedon a web server at step 508. For instance, a user may select a websystem service UI control in an embodiment for storing a web applicationdocument, and a web system service interface may receive a request forstoring a web application document from the web system service UIcontrol. In an embodiment, a user may request a web application documentin a client browser to be stored on the web by selecting Save in the webapplication menu to invoke an API such as SaveWebAppDoc to save the webapplication document on the web. In an implementation, the webapplication document may be transmitted though a network to a webapplication server, which may write the web application document into anamed “Folder” or section of a hard drive.

FIG. 6 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for restoring a web application document. Arequest may be received at step 602 for restoring a web applicationdocument stored on a web server. In an embodiment, a user may select aweb system service UI control on a client for restoring a webapplication document from a web server on the client and a web systemservice interface on the client may receive a request from the websystem service UI control for restoring a web application document. Forexample, a user may restore a web application document in an applicationoperating on a client by selecting Restore in the web application menuto invoke an API such as RestoreWebAppDoc. The web system service maythen be performed on the client by request the content of a webapplication document to be loaded from the web into the applicationusing the context stored in the web application document. After thecontent of the web application document may be loaded in theapplication, the content may be modified by the application.

A request may then be received at step 606 to store the content of anapplication in a web application document on a web server, and thecontent may be stored in a web application document on a web server atstep 608. For instance, a user may request that content in a clientapplication be stored in a web application document on the web byselecting Save in the web application menu to invoke an API such asSaveWebAppDoc in an embodiment to save the content in a web applicationdocument on the web. The web system service may then save the content ina web application document and send a request to a web applicationserver to store the web application document on a web server.

FIG. 7 presents an exemplary illustration generally representing agraphical user interface for invoking web system services for supportingweb applications to store data and context as a web application documenton a web server. FIG. 7 illustrates a screen of a web browser 702 thatmay include a File button 704 that may be selected to provide a dropdown menu of file operations that may be performed upon a file stored ona client machine. FIG. 7 also illustrates a WebOS button 706 that may beselected to provide a drop down menu of web system service operationsthat may be performed on web application documents. Such web systemservice operations may include New, Open, Close, Save, Save As, Restore,and so forth. A user may have an application, such as a word processingapplication or a spreadsheet application, executing on a clientperforming operations on the content of a file, such as a wordprocessing document or a spreadsheet, and the user may request that aweb system service operation be performed on a web application document.For instance, the user may select Save in the WebOS drop-down menu torequest that the content in the application file be stored in a webapplication document on the web. Or the user may open a web applicationdocument stored on the web by selecting Open in the WebOS drop-down menufor loading the content stored in the web application document into theapplication file operated upon by the application executing on theclient.

When web system service operations may be selected using the graphicaluser interface, web system service APIs may be invoked for performingthe requested web system service. In an embodiment, a NewWebAppDoc APImay be invoked to request a web application document to be created, aSaveWebAppDoc API may be invoked to request content from an applicationto be saved in a web application document, and a RestoreWebAppDoc APImay be invoked to request the content of a web application document tobe loaded from the web into the application using the context stored inthe web application document.

FIG. 8 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for creating a web application document. Ingeneral, a web application document may include view information,content, and context information. At step 802, view information may beinput into the web application document. View information may provideinformation about the organization structure determining presentation touser, such as HTML or Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) declarations, ordetermining the file format of a client application file, such as a wordprocessing file or a spreadsheet file.

Any type of content may be input into the web application document atstep 804. Different types of content stored in various clientapplication files may be input into a web application document,including text, graphics, video, audio, and multimedia content. Andcontext information may be input into the web application document atstep 806. Context information is related to the content of a webapplication document and may be implicitly related, such as activitiesperformed by a client device around the time the document was created oredited, or explicitly related, as in keywords associated with a givenweb application document by a user. In an embodiment, references to thecontext information may be stored in a web application document, insteadof storing the context information itself.

FIG. 9 presents an exemplary illustration generally representingelements of a content file for a client application that may be inputinto a web application document. In particular, FIG. 9 illustrates ascreen of a web browser 902 that may include text 904, 916 and 910,images 906, 908 and 914, and links 912 to other web pages. The viewinformation for a client application such as web browser 902 may be HTMLor CSS declarations. Notice that the HTML file may include differenttypes of content that may be stored in a web application document,including text, images, and links to other web pages. In variousembodiments, links to web pages may be determined through analysis orcontext information associated with the web application document, andmay include links to related information, related people, one or moresearch links returning results related to context or content informationembodied in the web application document. In various other embodiments,applications for detecting and extracting context information, forexample in a web page, may be used to collect context information thatmay be stored in a web application document.

FIG. 10 presents a block diagram generally representing an exemplaryarchitecture of components in an embodiment for a web applicationdocument. In general, a web application document may be represented by adata structure such as container 1002 illustrated in FIG. 10. Thecontainer 1002 may include a set of nested items such as that describedin the MPEG-21 standard in further details. Each item may include adescriptor and one or more components and/or one or more items. Forinstance, item 1030 is illustrated in FIG. 10 as nested within item1020. A component may include a descriptor and resource. Each of thecomponents 1008, 1014, 1024, and 1032 illustrated in FIG. 10 includes adescriptor and resource, such as descriptor 1010 and resource 1012 incomponent 1008, descriptor 1016 and resource 1018 in component 1014,descriptor 1026 and resource 1028 in component 1024, and descriptor 1034and resource 1036 in component 1032. The descriptor information in theitem may provide a declaration of the item and may further characterizethe type of data. The resource information may store data of the typedescribed in the descriptor information.

For example, the text 904 and the image 906 of FIG. 9 may be stored asitem 1004 of FIG. 10. The descriptor 1006 may characterize the item astext with animation. The text 904 and the image 906 of FIG. 9 may bestored within item 1004 of FIG. 10 as components 1008 and 1014respectively of item 1004. The descriptor information 1010 for the textcomponent 1008 may declare the data type as string and the resourceinformation 1012 may store the text as a text string. The descriptorinformation 1016 for the animation component 1014 may declare the datatype as animation and the resource information 1018 may store theanimation sequence. Similarly, other items, such at item 1020 and item1030 might contain the URLs of images used in the document, or thefolder and file names of the actual image files as stored in one of theuser's web system services folders. Furthermore, a description of thecontent may also include the content history and metadata informationthat may also be stored along with the content. For instance,information about the original creator, where else the content may havebeen used, where the content originated, and so forth may be included inthe descriptor of content items and components in a container. Suchdescription of content may be available for modification and reuse ascontent may be modified and/or reused.

Additionally, context information may be stored in the container. Forexample, time or place context information may be stored as a set ofstrings within an item in the container. The descriptor information inthe item may declare that the data is of type string and may furthercharacterize the data as a timestamp representing the number of secondsfrom a given, standard starting point. Thus the view, content andcontext information may be generally included in a multi-form datacontainer with a description of the information included in thecontainer so that the encapsulated information may be archived,transmitted, accessed by processes, etc. Such a web applicationdocument, with its enriched context information, may make available arich set of information that may be enhanced by external processes. Forinstance, a web application document may include context informationabout related subjects, for example, which can be inspected by a browserthat retrieves relevant information dynamically generated by others onother websites over time. A web application document may also includetemporally organized communications information, such as a list ofcommuniques received by the creator during the creation of the documentand related to that document by content or other context. Thus, abrowser might be able to call forth a list of emails relevant to thedocument, providing retrospective context to the document creator at alater review date.

Those skilled in the art will appreciate that such clustering of theinformation in a data structure representing the web applicationdocument may be accomplished in various embodiments using a variety ofdata structures. For instance, the clustering of the information may beaccomplished as illustrated in FIG. 10 by container model, or usingother methods, such as by creating linked entries in an XML objectdatabase, where the data in each object corresponds to and is arrangedaccording to the XML tags that characterize the data.

FIG. 11 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment to transfer content and context informationof a client application file into a web application document. At step1102, a client application file may be parsed to determine viewinformation that may be input into the web application document. Forexample, the web page file displayed on the screen of the web browser902 illustrating in FIG. 9 may be parsed and it may be determined thatthe view information for presentation may be HTML. The view informationmay then be stored at step 1104 into the web application document. In anembodiment, the view information may be stored as a set of stringswithin an item in a container, such as the container 1002 illustrated inFIG. 10.

At step 1106, the content of a client application file may be parsed todetermine the content components that may be input into the webapplication document. A parser, like content parser 212 of FIG. 2, mayparse content of the client application file outputting contentcomponents identified in the client application file. The contextcomponents may then be stored at step 1108 into the web applicationdocument.

At step 1110, context information may be extracted from monitoredcontent information sources to determine context information componentsthat may be input into the web application document. A monitor, likecontext information monitor 210, may monitor and collect contextinformation related to the content of a web application document to beincorporated into a web application document. At step 1112, contextinformation components may be stored into the web application document.After the view information, content, and context information may bestored in a web application document, processing may be finished fortransferring content and context information of a client applicationfile into a web application document.

FIG. 12 presents an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logicalrelationship of context information for storing web applicationdocuments on the web. Context information may generally mean informationthat is related to the content of a web application document. Suchcontext information may be implicitly related, as in communications sentor received around the time the document was created or edited, orexplicitly related, as in keywords associated with a given webapplication document by a user. In particular, FIG. 12 illustrates thelogical relationship between context types 1204 of context information1202 such as location 1206, actions 1208, communications 1210, worldinformation 1212, semantic similarity 1214 and social information 1215.There may be many types of context information that may be implicitly orexplicitly related to a web application document.

In an embodiment for instance, there may be a location context type 1206for location information such as the name of the place 1216 where theclient may be located, the geographic coordinates 1218 where the clientmay be located, the web application functions 1220 or services used forthe web application document, the IP address 1222 of the device used toaccess the web application document, and so forth. There may also be anaction context type 1208 for actions generally performed by a clientdevice preceeding, during or following an operation performed on a webapplication document. These actions may include general activitiesperformed by a client device or information about the activities such assearches 1224 on the web, clickstream activity 1226 captured by a webbrowser, recently used documents 1228, and playlists 1230. These actioncontext types may be an example of context types of informationexplicitly related to a web application document. Communication contexttypes may represent context information implicitly related to a webapplication document. A communication context type 1220 may representcontext information of communications including email 1232, instantmessaging 1234 and other types of text messaging or textual informationsent or received. There may also be a world information context type1212 for information about world events occurring and generallyaccessible by a client device preceeding, during or following anoperation performed on a web application document. A world informationcontext type may represent context information about world eventsincluding headlines 1236, weather 1238, alerts 1240, and other types ofworld events. This information may be captured from client servicesactive on a client device such as RSS feeds providing headline news andother information.

There may also be a semantic similarity context type 1214 for capturinginformation that may be used to find other textual content with semanticsimilarity. This semantic similarity information may represent internalsemantic similarity information 1242 captured from the content of theweb application document or may represent external semantic similarityinformation 1244 captured from world information or action information.For example, as content may be input into or content may be edited in aweb application document, a semantic analyzer may monitor key terms andcreate inferred context information representing internal semanticcontext information. Thus, when a user writes frequently aboutanimation, the term “animation” or “animate” may be captured as a keyterm stored as internal semantic similarity information. Likewise, asemantic analyzer may monitor and capture key terms in appearing inworld information such as headline news. Semantic analysis may includeword frequency matching for keywords and/or tags, and association ofcommon individuals or groups of users may be identified by semanticanalysis. Additionally, there may be social information context type1215 for information about relationships to people, or relationshipsbetween people and the content of a web application document.

For any of these context types, those skilled in the art will appreciatethat additional context information may be obtained. For example,additional social network information may be obtained including theextended set of individuals related to the content and/or to each other,or those related to a relevant concept or event. For example, if thecontent may be about animation, those who share an interest in animationin a user's social network may be associated as elements of socialnetwork type of context information. Or if the content may be about ananimation festival, the group of users who had attended the animationfestival, the festival event information and those who had RSVP'ed toattend the event might be included as elements of social network type ofcontext information. Or additional location information may be obtainedfor instance that may include the time when the web application documentwas created, modified or accessed, the zip code, and other userspresent. Similarly, additional action information may include web pagesaccessed, documents saved or recalled, media stored and/or played,and/or other applications used. Additional communication information,world information and semantic similarity information may be obtainedand used as context information.

FIG. 13 presents an illustration depicting in an embodiment a logicalschema of elements for a context scope declaration applicable to a webapplication document. In particular, FIG. 13 illustrates a context scopedeclaration schema 1302 as a logical schema of elements including afield of view 1306, a time 1308, relevance criteria 1310, entries toreturn 1312, social 1313, and who may be associated with the relevantinformation 1314. The field of view 1306 element may represent thebreadth of subject information sources. For email, a field of view for acontext type of communications may be an email address. The time 1308element may represent a time span from a given point relating to thecreation or use of a web application document. For instance, such a timespan may be the period from one week prior to creation of the documentuntil the present time. The relevance 1310 element may representcriteria for determining what items may be relevant. There may bevarious ways to declare relevance. The entries 1312 element mayrepresent the number of matching items to return. The social 1313element may represent relationships to people, or relationships betweenpeople and the content of a web application document. Thus, informationabout relationships may include degrees of separation 1332, physicalproximity 1334, frequency of interactions 1336 and history ofinteractions 1338. In various embodiments such characteristics aboutrelationships may be weighted, for instance, by degrees of separation,by physical proximity, by most recent or frequent interactions. The who1314 element may represent the people associated with the relevantinformation such as names of people associated with the content, andperhaps profile information as may be found in an address book.

The criteria for determining what items may be relevant may includesimilarity 1316, text matching 1318, user attention 1320, and so forth.Similarity 1316 may be determined using collaborative filtering 1322,semantic analysis of word frequency matching 1324, and/or visualanalysis 1326. User attention 1320 for a web application document may bedetermined either explicitly 1328 by being highly scored by a user orimplicitly 1330 by being revised most.

FIG. 14 presents an exemplary illustration generally representing agraphical user interface for invoking a web system service for storingclient application data and context as a web application document on aweb server. FIG. 14 illustrates a screen of a web browser 1402displaying a drop-down menu 1404 of web system service operations thatmay be performed on web application documents. Such web system serviceoperations may include New, Open, Close, Save, Save As, Restore, and soforth. A user may have an application, such as a web browser, executingon a client that may display the contents of a web page retrieved from aweb server. By selecting Save in the WebOS drop-down menu, the user mayrequest that the content in the web page be stored in a web applicationdocument on the web. FIG. 14 illustrates a Save screen 1406 activated bya user selecting Save in the WebOS drop-down menu. The Save screen 1406may include selectable options for a user to specify parameters forsaving content of an application file and context information as a webapplication document on a web server. For example, the Save screen 1406may provide a text input controls such as Save text input control 1408for receiving a text describing what application file to save, the Wheretext input control 1410 for receiving a text description of the locationto store the web application document, and/or a Keywords text inputcontrol 1412 for receiving keywords to be associated with the webapplication document.

The Save screen 1406 may also include selectable options for a user tospecify parameters of the information to be saved in a web applicationdocument. For instance, the Save screen 1406 may provide check boxcontrols such as check box control 1414 for selecting to save the viewinformation of a client application file, a check box control 1416 forselecting to save the media or content of a client application file,and/or check box control 1414 for selecting to save the contextinformation of a client application file. A user may choose to select avariable amount of context information by setting a slider control toindicate the amount of context information to save for different contexttypes. There may be a slider control 1420 for selecting the amount oftime and place context information 1430. There may be a slider control1422 for selecting the amount of actions context information 1432. Theremay be a slider control 1424 for selecting the amount of communicationscontext information 1434. There may be a slider control 1426 forselecting the amount of world information context information 1436. Andthere may also be a slider control 1428 for selecting the amount ofsimilarity context information 1438.

Furthermore, a user may select to save either copies or references ofthe content or context information. In an embodiment, the Save screen1406 may provide check box controls such as check box control 1440 forselecting to save copies of the content and context information andcheck box control 1442 for selecting to save pointers referencing thecontent and context information. Saving pointers referencing the contentand context information may save storage space on the web server wherethe web application document may be stored, but may prove less reliablein restoring the web document, as reference information may have changedor become unavailable. Thus, a user might elect to store the documentcontent itself where reliable restoring of exactly the informationoriginally included is required, or elect to store references where thisis not a requirement, or elect to store a combination in an interfaceconfiguration (not shown) where the variable nature of referencedinformation is desirable, such as to include a “picture of the day”relevant to the document content.

FIG. 15 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for determining information to transferfrom a client application file into a web application document. At step1502, it may be determined whether the view information may be storedinto the web application document. For example, executable code invokedby the SaveWebAppDoc API may determine in an embodiment whether the viewinformation may be stored in a web application document by performing alookup of a setting indicating whether to store the view information inthe web application document. Such a setting may be activated by inputreceived in check box control 1414 of FIG. 14 for selecting to save theview information of a client application file.

At step 1504, it may be determined whether the content of a clientapplication file may be stored into the web application document.Executable code invoked by the SaveWebAppDoc API may determine in anembodiment whether the content of a client application file may bestored in a web application document by performing a lookup of asetting, such as a setting activated by input received in check boxcontrol 1416 of FIG. 14, indicating whether to store the content in theweb application document.

At step 1506, it may be determined whether the context informationrelated to a client application file may be stored into the webapplication document. Executable code invoked by the SaveWebAppDoc APImay determine in an embodiment whether the context information relatedto a client application file may be stored in a web application documentby performing a lookup of a setting, such as a setting activated byinput received in check box control 1418 of FIG. 14, indicating whetherto store the context information in the web application document.

FIG. 16 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in an embodiment for determining the amount of contextinformation to transfer from a client application file into a webapplication document. At step 1602, the amount of location typeinformation may be determined to be stored into a web applicationdocument. In an embodiment, executable code invoked by the SaveWebAppDocAPI may determine the amount of location type information to be storedin a web application document by performing a lookup of a settingindicating an amount of location type information to store in the webapplication document. For instance, a slider control, such as slidercontrol 1420 of FIG. 14, may be moved by user input to a fixed settingfor selecting the amount of location type information to save in a webapplication document.

At step 1604, the amount of action type information may be determined tobe stored into a web application document. In an embodiment, executablecode invoked by the SaveWebAppDoc API may determine the amount oflocation type information to be stored in a web application document byperforming a lookup of a setting, such as a setting fixed by slidercontrol 1422 of FIG. 14, indicating an amount of action type informationto store in the web application document. Similarly, the amount ofcommunications type information, the amount of world type information,the amount of similarity type information, and the amount of social typeinformation may be determined to be stored into a web applicationdocument at steps 1606, 1608, 1610 and 1612 respectively. Executablecode invoked by the SaveWebAppDoc API may determine the amount ofcommunications type information, the amount of world type information,the amount of similarity type information, and the amount of social typeinformation to be stored in a web application document by performing alookup of settings, such as a settings respectivley fixed by slidercontrols 1424, 1426 and 1428 of FIG. 14.

FIG. 17 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for determining information to transferfrom a web application document to a client application for display. Atstep 1702, the view information to be restored from the web applicationdocument to a client application may be determined. For example,executable code invoked by the RestoreWebAppDoc API may determine in anembodiment what view information may be stored in a web applicationdocument by loading the components of a web application file in theclient and parsing the components. The view information found may beused to launch the application corresponding to the view informationtype. If the view information type may be HTML, than a web browser maybe launched and the content components may be loaded from the webapplication file into a web browser for display.

At step 1704, the content to be restored from the web applicationdocument to a client application may be determined. For example, thecontent components found from parsing the components of the webapplication file by executable code invoked by the RestoreWebAppDoc APImay be loaded from the web application file into a client applicationfor display.

At step 1706, the context information to be restored from the webapplication document to a client application may be determined. Forexample, the context information components found from parsing thecomponents of the web application file by executable code invoked by theRestoreWebAppDoc API may be loaded from the web application file into aclient application or the web system services interface for access anddisplay.

Those skilled in the art may appreciate that selectable settings forview information, content information and context information may be setusing default setting for individual devices or for a class of devices.FIG. 18 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment to transfer content and context informationfrom a web application document to a client application for display. Atstep 1802, a request may be received to restore application data for anapplication executing on a client device. In an embodiment, theRestoreWebAppDoc API may be invoked by receiving a request from a userinterface to restore a web application document for a clientapplication. In general, a parser, like content parser 212 of FIG. 2,may parse components of a container representing the web applicationdocument to identify information to load on the client device. The viewinformation of a web application document may be parsed at step 1804 todetermine view information that may be loaded on the client device. Forexample, a container representing a web application document may beparsed and it may be determined that the view information forpresentation may be HTML. In an embodiment, the view information may bestored as a set of strings within an item in a container, such as thecontainer 1002 illustrated in FIG. 10. The view information may then beloaded at step 1806 on the client device.

At step 1808, context information components of the web applicationdocument may be parsed to determine context information to load on theclient device. The context information components may then be loaded atstep 1810 as context information on the client device. At step 1812, thecontent components of the web application document may be parsed todetermine content to load on the client device. The content componentsmay then be loaded at step 1814 as application data on the clientdevice. After the view information, content, and context information maybe loaded on the client device, the application data may be processed byan application executing on the client device. A user may then requestthat the content and context information of a client application bestored as a web application document on a web server.

There may be any number of applications that may use the context andrelated information saved along with the content of a web applicationdocument. The context information may be used as a stream of keywordsfor online advertising applications. The keywords may be transmitted toan online advertising service that may return advertisements for displayalong with the application data or web application document. A user mayclick on these advertisements and generate revenue for the onlineadvertising service. FIG. 19 presents a block diagram generallyrepresenting an exemplary architecture of system components for usingcontext information for online advertising applications. Those skilledin the art will appreciate that the functionality implemented within theblocks illustrated in the diagram may be implemented as separatecomponents or the functionality of several or all of the blocks may beimplemented within a single component. For example, the functionalityfor the client query handler 1906 may be included in the same componentas the application 1904. Moreover, those skilled in the art willappreciate that the functionality implemented within the blocksillustrated in the diagram may be executed on a single computer ordistributed across a plurality of computers for execution.

In various embodiments, a client computer 1902 may be operably coupledto one or more advertising servers 1914 by a network 1912. The clientcomputer 1902 may be a computer such as computer system 100 of FIG. 1.The network 1912 may be any type of network such as a local area network(LAN), a wide area network (WAN), or other type of network. Anapplication 1904 may execute on the client computer 1902 and may includefunctionality for sending context information 1908 as a query to aclient query handler 1906. The application 1904 may be operably coupledto the client query handler 1906 that may include functionality forreceiving a query with context information 1908 that may include one ormore keywords 1910 and may include functionality for sending a queryrequest to an advertising server 1914 to obtain a list of advertisementsfor display. In general, the application 1904 and the client queryhandler 1906 may be any type of interpreted or executable software codesuch as a kernel component, an application program, a script, a linkedlibrary, an object with methods, and so forth.

The advertising server 1914 may be any type of computer system orcomputing device such as computer system 100 of FIG. 1. In general, theadvertising server 1914 may provide services for query processing andmay include services for providing a list of advertisements for displayon a client. In particular, the advertising server 1914 may include aserver query handler 1916 for receiving and responding to queryrequests, and an advertisement selector 1918 for choosing lists ofadvertisements for keywords of the queries. Each of these modules mayalso be any type of executable software code such as a kernel component,an application program, a linked library, an object with methods, orother type of executable software code.

The advertising server 1914 may be operably coupled to a database ofadvertisements such as advertisement storage 1920 that may include anytype of advertisements 1926 that may be associated with an advertisementIDs 1922 and keywords 1928 that may be associated with keyword IDs 1924.In an embodiment, a keyword ID 1924 may be associated with anadvertisement ID 1922 that may map keywords 1928 to advertisements 1926.A list of advertisements may be selected for one or more keywords andmay be sent to the client computer 1902 for display along withapplication data of an application 1904.

FIG. 20 presents a flowchart for generally representing the stepsundertaken in one embodiment for using context information for onlineadvertising applications. At step 2002, one or more keywords fromcontext information of an application executing on a client device maybe sent to an advertisement server. In various embodiments, the keywordsmay be entered by a user as tags for the application content, or thekeywords may alternatively be extracted from the content of theapplication. The keywords from context information of an application maybe received at step 2004 by an advertisement server. In an embodiment, aserver query handler executing on the advertisement server may receivethe keywords as a query sent from a query handler executing on a clientdevice.

At step 2006, a list of advertisements may be selected using thekeywords from the context information of the application. In anembodiment, advertisements may be selected by an advertisement selectorusing any well-known online keyword auction techniques where advertisersmay bid on keywords for selection of their advertisements to be includedin a list of advertisements chosen for display. After selecting the listof advertisements using the keywords, the list of advertisements may besent at step 2008 to the client device for display. A client device maythen receive the list of advertisements at step 2010 from theadvertising server for display on the client device and the list ofadvertisement may be displayed at step 2012 on the client device alongwith the client application data.

In addition to using context information for online advertisingapplications, those skilled in the art will appreciate that otherapplications may use the context and related information saved alongwith the content of a web application document. For instance, a listingof relevant people included as elements of context information from aweb application document may be generated along with their contactinformation and displayed by an application in a sidebar display on aclient device.

Thus, the present invention may save and restore a web applicationdocument using a variety of devices and may capture context informationrelevant to the web application document. Advantageously, a user mayspecify a named folder on a web server for storing the web applicationdocument as easily as storing a file on a local hard drive.Additionally, a user may select the amount of context information tostore about the web application document as well as specify keywords tobe associated with the web application document. Importantly, useridentities may be mapped to stored information to support such storageon the web, and may be authenticated in varying degrees to conform tothe sensitivity of the information provided.

As can be seen from the foregoing detailed description, the presentinvention provides an improved system and method for providing websystem services for storing data and context information of clientapplications on the web. Such a system and method may implement a dataand storage model that may accommodate an otherwise varied set ofdocument types and configurations by providing consistent servicesacross an arbitrary set of applications. The web system servicesdescribed may allow the web to provide primary storage for informationrather than client hard drives. In addition to storing content for userson the web, enhanced context and related information may be saved alongwith the content. Furthermore, view information may be saved thatprovides information about the organization structure determiningpresentation to user. Moreover, information stored using the web systemsservices may be made generally available for retrieval by webapplications other than those that stored the information. Furthermore,privacy controls may additionally be implemented for sharing webapplication documents with other users. As a result, the system andmethod provide significant advantages and benefits needed incontemporary computing and in online applications.

While the invention is susceptible to various modifications andalternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereof areshown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. It shouldbe understood, however, that there is no intention to limit theinvention to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, theintention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, andequivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.

1. A computer system for processing application data for storage on anetwork, comprising: an application operating on a client deviceconnected to the network for processing application data; a webapplication document having content and context information input by theapplication operating on the client device, each item of the contextinformation belonging to a predefined context type and having a scopedeclared according to a predefined schema; and a context informationmonitor operably coupled to the application operating on the clientdevice for monitoring and collecting context information that may beinput into the web application document.
 2. The system of claim 1further comprising a web application server operably coupled to theapplication for providing web system services for storing the webapplication document.
 3. The system of claim 2 further comprising astorage operably coupled to the web system services for storing the webapplication document.
 4. A computer-readable medium havingcomputer-executable components comprising the system of claim
 1. 5. Acomputer-implemented method for processing application data for storageon a network, comprising: processing application data on a client deviceconnected to the network; monitoring context information sources on theclient device connected to the network; extracting context informationfrom the monitored context information sources; and storing the contextinformation in the web application document.
 6. The method of claim 5further comprising determining the context information to store in theweb application document.
 7. The method of claim 5 wherein extractingcontext information from the monitored context information sourcescomprises extracting location information.
 8. The method of claim 5wherein extracting context information from the monitored contextinformation sources comprises extracting action information.
 9. Themethod of claim 5 wherein extracting context information from themonitored context information sources comprises extracting communicationinformation.
 10. The method of claim 5 wherein extracting contextinformation from the monitored context information sources comprisesextracting world information.
 11. The method of claim 5 whereinextracting context information from the monitored context informationsources comprises extracting similarity information.
 12. The method ofclaim 5 wherein extracting context information from the monitoredcontext information sources comprises extracting social information. 13.The method of claim 5 wherein monitoring context information sources onthe client device connected to the network comprises monitoring contextinformation within a declaration scope for elements of a field of view.14. The method of claim 5 wherein monitoring context information sourceson the client device connected to the network comprises monitoringcontext information within a declaration scope for elements of time. 15.The method of claim 5 wherein monitoring context information sources onthe client device connected to the network comprises monitoring contextinformation within a declaration scope for elements of relevancecriteria.
 16. The method of claim 5 wherein monitoring contextinformation sources on the client device connected to the networkcomprises monitoring context information within a declaration scope forelements of entries to return.
 17. The method of claim 5 whereinmonitoring context information sources on the client device connected tothe network comprises monitoring context information within adeclaration scope for elements of users associated with relevantinformation.
 18. A computer system for processing application data forstorage on a network, comprising: means for processing application dataon a client device connected to the network; means for monitoringcontext information sources on the client device connected to thenetwork; and means for storing the context information in the webapplication document.
 19. The computer system of claim 18 furthercomprising means for extracting context information from the monitoredcontext information sources.
 20. The computer system of claim 18 furthercomprising means for determining the context information to store in theweb application document.